Thanks to Dr Kalyanaraman-ji for alerting me to this article: “How ancient India upheld democracy, kept corruption at bay“, by Brij Khandelwal, published in DNA. Excerpts below (emphasis mine):
Aligarh Muslim University historian S Chandni Bi, who has specialised in epigraphy, the study of inscriptions, says around 1,000 years ago there was zero tolerance towards financial bungling. According to him, inscriptions in the southern state of Tamil Nadu clearly indicate how intolerant civil society was against corrupt practices and the violators of ethical framework.
Chandni told IANS in an interview: “A well-evolved …

Today is the 231st birth anniversary of Ranjit Singh, first MahaRaja of the Sikh Empire in north India. He was born on 13th November in 1780 at Gujranwala (now in Pakistan) and had his first taste of battle when he was barely ten! At the time of his birth, much of the land in the region of five rivers was split amongst various Sikh confederates (misl). There was no central authority, no dominant misl and little coordination amongst the various confederates.  By the time he was in his late teens,  the foundations …

In Part I, we read how the history taught to young minds has been deliberately twisted and distorted -presumably in the interest of maintaining peace and harmony. Continuing in the same vein, today a look at the Mughals – “descendants of two great lineages of rulers” and a “chieftain“ who established an empire that effectively de-throned the Mughals and rivaled the Mughals at its peak.
The “chieftain” is a reference to Chhatrapati Shivaji MahaRaj. My simple dictionary tells me that a “chieftain” is usually a leader of a group, clan or tribe. …

…are condemned to repeat it…Several weeks ago, I chanced upon the NCERT website with links to “History” text-books for middle school students in India. Curiousity led me to download some of the chapters from the text book for students of Class VII. I was angry and sad at what I discovered.
The tales of Rajput valour and their determined resistance against the Mughals find no mention in this History text for students of Class VII (Age 12-14). There is no mention of the three Jauhars of Chittor (or of the more …

As many of you would remember, today is the birth anniversary* of MahaRana Pratap of Mewar. On this occasion, some inspiring excerpts detailing the exploits of the one who never gave up…The first excerpt is about the famous ”Battle of Haldighati” as described in “The History of India: The Hindú and Mahometan Periods” by Mountstuart Elphinstone:
On June 21, 1576 (June 18 by other calculations), the two armies met at Haldighati, near the town of Gogunda in present-day Rajasthan. While accounts vary as to the exact strength of the two armies, all …

Start your Sunday evening with It’s Tracking Your Every Move and You May Not Even Know by Noam Cohen:
A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends
when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turn ed reporting these updates into a game.
…But as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we volunteer to be or not. Cellphone companies do not typically divulge how much information they collect, so Mr. Spitz went to court to find out …

March 1669: The Mughals, still smarting under their defeat at the hands of Ahom forces led by Lachit Barphukan two years back are not taking any chances this time. A large army of “30,000 infantry, 15,000 archers, 18,000 Turkish cavalry, 5,000 gunners and over 1000 cannons besides a large flotilla of boats” is moving up the Brahmaputra towards Guwahati. The forces are led by Raja Ram Singh, son of Raja Jai Singh, who was also a Mughal general and had fought against Shivaji, thousands of kilometers beyond – in the …

Brief post ahead of the weekend…in which I discover a new meaning of the words “Shuddho” and “Aushuddho”. Extracted from Sh CJS Walia’s review of Arun Shourie’s “EMINENT HISTORIANS: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud”
Several of Shourie’s chapters appeared first as columns. One of his readers sent him a copy of a circular sent by the West Bengal Government Secondary Board ordering revisions of Class IX History textbooks..
The accompanying pages contained two columns: Aushuddho (Errors) and Shuddho (Corrections).
Shourie provides numerous examples from these pages.
From Bharuter Itihash by Shobhankar Chattopadhyaya, published …

From the first part of this story:
As Guru-ji returned to Punjab in 1670, news of his increasing influence reached Aurangzeb. Royal reporters mentioned how “For years by now…he (Guru Tegh Bahadur) has been conducting an extensive whirlwind tour of the country. He has been going about with many thousand men. He is also collecting funds”
Aurangzeb received these reports in the North-west where he was dealing with the rebellion of Pathans. As Kartar Singh-ji notes:
He (Aurangzeb) had no time to make intensive enquiries about allegations. …

Many of you would remember the promise I made some days ago to share  the inspiring story about the life of Guru Tegh Bahadur-ji on this blog.
I was hoping to do last week but my visit to North-East delayed this post. That said, Guruji’s story is timeless…and will no doubt be retold many many times…What follows is my humble attempt at depicting the life of this saint.  Although we are all very familiar with Guru Tegh Bahadur’s name, his deeds – like hundreds of other proud chapters from Indian history …